Selina mentioned in The Pengwing, SO…

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Selina mentioned in The Pengwing, SO…
People who can do multis are God's favorite
Nathalie Emmanuel as Gwendoline in Army of Thieves (2021) dir. Matthias Schweighöfer
Someone at the table has a neon green glow stick shooting through their Tijuana Punch. It’s been stinging the corner of his eye. Selina plays cat and mouse with the cocktail menu; half-using it as a shield and half for punctuation. He can’t read anything on it. A lavender overlay lines his jacket’s inseam. Were the lighting not so abysmal, he’d have taken a gander at the appetizers. Nix has been craving birria for months. He can smell it from a few tables over.
Their table will shake any second now should he keep bouncing his knee. Sokol whines and noses his master’s knee to still its tremble. When that fails, he displaces as much of his great weight to the right as he can and lays his cinder block head across Joker’s thigh. Werewolf turns his wrist up to smooth the dog’s head in languid strokes.
Laughter and conversation from nearby tables clutters his brain. More than a few sets of eyes lock on him. Even more whip their phones out.
The lunar craters in his wedding band toy with what little spangles of light will graze them. He follows two across the floor until the table next to them is reached. Strobing bass drops from the club and hookah bar continue to pummel his brain. The ache begins at his temples, then wraps around his head and settles behind his right eye. Joker suffers a harsh, smoky laugh and averts his eyes until a smoke screen protects him. He inflates his lungs with poison, holds, then keeps the wrist and that stick held to his lips to hide just how rehearsed his smile is.
Squinting doesn’t aid him any. Two of Selina swish together, then wing back out. More fog drowns his vision. Joker bares teeth by grinning to hard and suffers a filthy laugh. It’s breathy, coarse, and fades with the plume that hangs before him.
“‘My wife’…” he echoes her inflections, “—has a name, Lina.” Joker clears his throat. The phlegm doesn’t break up, forcing his inhales to thin until the restaurant swirls. Static pushes in with tidal force. “Way less syllables than Cobblepot. Fairly easy to say,” he exaggerates widening his eyes, “So for that, you can humor me…” The sulky recessed light fixtures leave his eyes appearing backlit. “What connects me to old dead Carmine?” Before he lets that simmer, Joker slackens his jaw and taps the air with his cigarette, “Beyond the lowest common biological denominator, I mean.” Thomas Wayne. "Did I commit a crime?"
Selina snaps her gaze to Joker’s and takes on the look of a guilty party. Repentance turns her mouth down at the corners. She’s lowering the menu to square him with her full attention. Her full genuine apology too. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” She smiles, a little, and inclines her head. “Nix. I know better.” And she does. Before she can make either of them more uncomfortable, thus breaking the fervor of her regret, Selina returns her regard to the list of drinks.
If she’s aware of the scrutiny around them, Selina is astutely ignoring it. She drags one clawed finger through the liquor options and then sits back in her seat fully. There are enough accidents throughout the city that a missing off-duty cop deposited in the back alley will probably go unnoticed until when next someone takes out the trash. Knowing this doesn’t put Selina at ease. She still glances around attentively and will continue to do so before the evening’s up.
“I’m not trying to accuse you of anything,” Selina asserts. She runs a finger around the rim of her water glass but it makes no sound. They probably wouldn’t hear it even if it did though. She strains for another try anyway with the same results. “I feel like I’m still trying to piece my life together. It’s like no matter what I’m doing, something new rolls into my path that I have to adjust for.” She makes an attempt to catch Joker’s eye. Whatever she’s suggesting might sit in her probing stare. “You know what I mean?” She has a feeling he does.
The waitress comes around for drink orders. Selina clocks the woman’s wandering gaze and too-wide smile and affords herself a snicker only after she’s requested a frozen margarita for herself. “Is that a you thing or a Wayne thing? Or is there not a difference anymore?” Her curiosity is strictly coincidental. Of course.
Selina lets her shoulders relax marginally. It takes effort but she manages an inch lower. She’s got her arms crossed though. “I have family in town,” she says between her teeth. “But I’m not so sure blood runs thicker than water in this case. Not with the pipes in this city.” Selina smiles and this time it’s real. Reaches her eyes. “Well, that and apparently not unless you’re a Wayne.”
He’s been in this room all of one time before this encounter. Forced to attend a board meeting at the time, he’d sat at the head of the table and thumbed through news articles on his phone in his lap without listening. It was his first and last invitation to play - act his way through figurehead of the family business; that had been ten years ago and they still hope he’ll get over this reclusive phase. If only they knew how he’d just put this room to use. . .
Bruce sits up and studies her. Trying to stop her forcefully will end the night physically painful, so he waits until she’s finished dressing. He waits until she’s already trying to retreat. ❝ Selina. ❞ It’s so quiet that his voice fills the room as if he’d been mic’d up; there’s a speaker system installed in the ceiling for Zoom calls, a recent update that he must have signed off on at some point yet barely remembers the installation having been done. Alfred would have overseen the work if Bruce had been sleeping off a rough night gallivanting across Gotham. That’s the likely explanation.
She’s keyed up. She has been since the moment he intercepted her in the hall. Whatever she came for, he’s sure she’ll try again if only to hurt him. He can’t say that he blames her, but he doesn’t have to like it or allow it without a fight. She’s trying to flee, but Bruce slides off the table and rises to his full height, adjusting his pants as he crosses the short distance to follow her.
At the door, her only exit unless she plans to rappel 60 stories to the street, he steps around her profile. Bruce doesn’t press his hand to the frame, but this close, he figures his request is clear. Fury brightens her eyes in the dark of the room and he keeps his attention there instead of the shape of his teeth blooming against her collar where she hasn’t finished zipping up her suit. ❝ Where are you staying? Your old place is gone, you know. ❞
She might just prefer that 60 story drop to another second enduring the grate of his voice. Selina stiffens when he says her name and hates herself for it. Hates him more for it too. When they reinstate eye contact, hers is brimming with fire. She hopes he can feel it. Better he feels her ire than her hurt. She’d like to put that feeling to bed even more than she’d like to scold herself for heeding his unspoken requests, both the want for her attention and her lingering, but she’ll settle for juggling both if only because it feels all the more productive.
Selina straightens to her full height but he’s still got several inches on her. The lighting in the conference room shades him like he still dons that cowl. It can’t protect her from the bright of his eyes even in the dark. She can put those eyes to his real face now. It infuriates her. “I’m not staying here, if that’s what you’re getting at.” The amusement in her voice is vicious. If he wants to treat her with condescension, she’ll return it in kind enough to disabuse him of trying it again.
It feels like so long ago, but not long enough as it were, that she’d almost wanted to know what she knows now. Ignorance is bliss. What an idiot, the both of them. Bruce draws close enough to steal all the cold in the room, all the liminal light too, and Selina holds her ground out of spite alone. Without his mask, he is just as moody and drawn into himself. More so, actually. Revealed now as he is, she can see how he still wears his brooding like armor.
“Unless you wanted another go.” Selina lifts a hand so as to draw her clawed fingers along the path between his waistband and navel. She hadn’t zipped herself up to the throat and now she thinks that’s probably for the best. The indentation of his teeth and the bruise beneath isn’t the only thing open for his perusal if he wanted to drop his gaze. Selina bares her teeth for him. “I know I said not again, but... Well maybe I was lying. If you ask me nicely. Does Bruce Wayne have those paid-for finishing school manners?”
Something I really like about this portrayal of Selina is how much she cares about people? Apparently that's really atypical for her as a character. But she puts herself in harm's way again and again in TBM22 for people which definitely is not self-serving like Selina is usually written
I'm thinking specifically about how she cares about Annika as much as she cares about her revenge against her father. But I don't think that her having a connection to Annika discounts her being someone who cares. You could argue that she doesn't even really know the Batman but still teamed up with him.
Something I really like about this portrayal of Selina is how much she cares about people? Apparently that's really atypical for her as a character. But she puts herself in harm's way again and again in TBM22 for people which definitely is not self-serving like Selina is usually written
A pop of cherry red's produced from his pant pocket before he moves to open the door. Joker drops a pin at Little Tijuana for Nix to track from her phone. By sleight of hand he collects his lighter and cigarette carton from Selina. One stick hangs from his teeth already. Joker drops the contraband back in his coat pocket and clucks his tongue for Sokol to step aside enough for Selina to enter first. She’s the one with the reservation. Doubtless his face alone could free up a few tables.
It’s surprisingly modern and TikTok-trendy on the inside: damp illumine unless one requests the wisteria-blanketed rooftop patio, wall-to-wall authentic Mexican artwork with price tags on most should visitors wish to purchase something, and pulsing bass drops from the DJ’s set in the lounge. None but Joker seem to mind how harsh that beat can get. He tugs his ear and vexes his jaw as if those motions could magically shake the static from his brain.
Once Selina crosses the threshold, he slips in like a specter and shadows her as they approach the hostesses at their podium. Wait staff wears all black and are masked-up to try and dodge the latest Covid strain. With his charred lungs, Joker should be as well. The hostess neither reprimands him for having a lit cigarette hanging from his mouth nor entering with a big black wolf-dog bigger than some humans at his side. That sky-blue harness spells out Sokol's function anyway.
“If this is the place I think it is...” the one Nix showed him from social feeds in a subliminal attempt to get him to take her, “The portions are huge. B-But there’s a ‘blood’ margarita that’s been on Nixie's radar.” Smoke stacks vent from his nostrils. No one in the restaurant cares for the fact that he’s smoking, rather, they’ve snapped him with another woman who isn't his beloved wife and are preparing to post with crude hashtags. “I’ll know when I see it.”
Selina’s table waits patiently for her as if she’d only just left to freshen up. By all rights, she’s done the exact opposite. Her glass of water still has a lipstick print the color of pitless dark cherries on the rim from when she’d feigned a sip. When she sits across from Joker now, she takes a real pull and rubs her retreating thumb and fingers together when condensation sticks to them. Her eyes bounce anxiously between the exit and the waitress going by who she can’t tell looks at her new company rather than Selina herself.
Joker’s service dog doesn’t help her nerves. Selina rubs her palms down the length of her thighs beneath the table to dispel any natural dampness. Outsiders might assume she fixes the folds in her pants rather than self soothes. She tips back in her seat to force a limper posture just to really sell it, but retains her hypervigilance without drifting her eyes away from the man seated across from her.
“Blood margarita, huh?” Selina plucks up the smaller menu and scans it, this time with the intention to order rather than to fake it before heading out back to drop a cop. She hums now. “You can make it spicy,” she relays from behind her makeshift privacy screen. She lowers it to smile conspiratorially at the eldest Wayne brother, but there’s reservation in what she’d fostered as a friendly demeanor. It sits in her eyes when he breaks that contact first. “Or skinny.”
Selina holds her menu by the tips of her thumbs, balancing it mostly on her fingers curled tightly around the cover. Dozens of questions whet her tongue, most of which she can’t ask Joker in their current setting. She barely manages to leash them, restraining herself mostly only when that waitress goes by again. She can’t hold on tight enough to one and lowers her voice to accommodate the ears they undoubtedly gather. “You weren’t involved with all that shit with Falcone two years ago, right? I mean, your wife and Cobblepot…” Selina shakes her head as if to clear it. “Not to mention–” Now she bites her tongue on a grimace and drops her unseeing eyes back to the menu. But only briefly. She rallies for Joker’s attention again. “I guess there’s some weight to keeping your enemies closer. Right?”
It does hurt. The only reason his brains aren’t splattered across the deck is in thanks to the way he landed, tucked in against himself with his arms raised in defense. How he had the foresight to manage the maneuver amidst all of this, who’s to say. The suit absorbed most of the impact from the fall, but he can feel it in his joints. Every hinge protests every movement and it takes a herculean amount of willpower to avoid going fetal. His cape’s twisted around itself, too, the fabric rejecting knotting or tearing and bunching beneath his spine. The cowl is somewhere amongst the shit and trash on either side of him.
The Batman rolls onto his hands and knees, and ignores the way his skull feels loose beneath his skin. Ringing started mid - flight, but now it’s a dull screaming. Selina in his periphery is all shadows; he can only just make out the shine of her eyes if he focuses hard enough. It hurts to squint at her. His energy is spent instead on reorienting himself on ground level.
She’d sent him over the edge herself with one swift kick to the gut. Another time, he would have dodged or caught her by the ankle and swept her off balance. Unmasked and in the open though, and faced with her immediate fury weaponized against him, his reflexes took the brunt of that relapse. Even now, he struggles. When he pushes himself upright, he doesn’t know if she wavers in front of him or if he sways against gravity. Either way, it exacerbates the pain blooming all over.
❝ What were you doing here? ❞ The Detective wields the sandpaper - quality of his voice in spite of his reveal. In this alcove, they are hidden away enough that there is a chance nothing catches the secret, but there’s no trusting these shadows. She’s tucked away into one anyway. He ducks his chin against his shoulder and glances back in search of the cowl. It’s too dark. She swims in his sights once more. ❝ Tailing me? ❞
His movement sends her shrinking further away down the wall. She isn’t afraid of him, but she isn’t feeling at all trusting either. He wields himself too quickly to be concussed. Selina won’t take any chances. The Batman, Bruce, whoever he is, looks lost without his helm. Like a little boy who’s just had his toys snatched out of his hands and can’t decide if crying will help his case. Expensive toys make for expensive tears. She’d like to see him try it. Her sympathy’s long been sapped out, least of all for a trust fund ass like Bruce fucking Wayne.
“You don’t get to ask questions,” Selina snaps at him. There’s a fine layer of mist hanging over the alleyway. It’s a pocket wide enough to soak them but it’s likely the clouds cover the entire island. Tomorrow morning will come and this side street might just be half flooded. The southern half of the city still holds a swell of the sea big enough to float dinghies rather than cars.
The Batman’s still looking for his mask. It won’t switch off the face he wears now. Not for Selina. She can still see the shock, and then the grim resignation, that had tightened the skin around his mouth and eyes before she’d kicked him off the roof above. Likely that’ll tumble around in her mind for days. That pisses her off just about as much as the whole damn night does. She debates crossing the canyon to find his cowl just so she can kick it out of his reach.
“You know, I fuckin’ knew it. I fuckin’ knew who you were and I just– I still– What is this? What the fuck are you doin’ anyway? Dressin’ up like a fuckin’– Is this how you get your kicks? Feels real good helpin’ out the fuckin’ needy except you’re not. You’re not even–” Her exhale is audible and humored, something like a laugh if any of this was funny. Maybe it is. Maybe she’ll laugh later. Or maybe she’ll feel better pushing him off another roof again. “You’re a real piece of fuckin’ work. Jesus Christ. Fuck you.”
A plume of pallid cigarette smoke exits between her pursed lips. She watches that stream lift above her head and disperse into Gotham preternatural yet consistent blanket of smog. The cylinder she's perched between the fingers of her left hand had been meant for Arthur, who despite the way his nerves jump and rattle for withdrawal, was snared too tightly in recent widower, Solomon Crowne's, droning conversation. Everyone at The Orchard Hotel this evening craves a piece of the Wayne heir, who's rumoured to soon be collapsing the music industry beneath his heel. His wife is a lone waif on the stone steps outside.
She'd eyed the nigh-imperceptible snatch of the woman's bracelet as she'd entered into the old Hotel's sickening decadence, while impressed. Her brows made for her hairline and her teeth flashed, revealing those whetted metal fangs everyone inside would prefer for her to hide. The Court loathes the animal of her, yet welcomes a wolf painted as a clown thoroughly into their midst. Nix likely looks to Selina to be just another participant in the gaudy reception inside; pearl-adorned, wrapped in a red dress she didn't pick, her cheeks pink for wine. Despite that, the undoubtful swathe of onlookers snap Skizm's Killer Queen on their phones as an outcast on the step-way.
She flashes her company a dour look, expressing even in her silence that the turn of blame would come as no surprise, then she steals for herself another long drag. Does nothing for her, and yet she'll waste the entire pack of twenty should her husband not emerge to claim them. One the exhale, she finally pulls her voice back.
" You heading inside? " She wouldn't get very far, at least not through any door. Something tells her that wouldn't be a problem. Nix's brows bounce when she gestures with a swing of her head inside. " There's basically a whole fucking banquet in there for you. All you can eat. "
Reef sharks are kinder than the predators that facilitate bullshit in the hall at Nix’s back. Isn’t it funny what they say about monsters? You can look them in the face and never realize what’s looking back at you. Selina’s used to those stories. Gotham’s got enough nightmare fuel to waste a grown man, but then that’s just any other big city. New York to the east of them has enough of its own. Selina had touched those halfassed paveways in a roundtrip back here to hell and still found them lacking quite as ugly fumes as Jersey’s dank island.
Selina hefts a hip, and a sizable pocket of tradeable diamonds in her hidden pocket, to one side. Nests a hand there, thumb tucked into the waistline of her smart trousers. She’s donned a costume for the occasion, a trim three piece suit the color of ripe eggplant. Her wig’s long past her shoulders and black and pinstraight. She might almost fit in at this party except for the depth of her gaze which has no lack of shark hunger but suits a different breed.
“Couldn’t find what I was looking for.” Selina tips her head and eyes her witness with inscrutable interest. When she cants her chin nigh centimeters on a swivel to the left, she can see Joker half listening to whatever’s being sold to him. Selina knows almost every person inside. She’s served drinks and drops to over half of them, some on more than one occasion. Joker wears his face, but that’s not what Others him.
“Looks like you’ll be waitin’ awhile.” The parade up those steps would pose a jeering assembly line for either one of them. A funeral dirge for Nix undoubtedly. A battle fit for war for Selina, who’s returned to looking at her fellow outcast with unchecked scrutiny. “You get off on caviar and saltines? Or is it full Michelin courses for the Wayne’s tonight?”
&. 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐭𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟐 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬.
( dialogue prompts taken from the batman (2022), directed by matt reeves. feel free to edit and change as you seem fit. )
❛ two years of nights have turned me into a nocturnal animal. ❜
❛ it’s a big city. i can’t be everywhere. ❜
❛ fear is a tool. ❜
❛ the hell are you supposed to be? ❜
❛ i’m vengeance. ❜
❛ what does a liar do when he’s dead? he lies still. ❜
❛ happy fuckin’ halloween. ❜
❛ i wish i could say i’m making a difference, but i don’t know. ❜
❛ the city’s eating itself. maybe it’s beyond saving. but i have to try. ❜
❛ you’re becoming quite a celebrity. ❜
❛ have a shower. ❜
❛ if this continues, it won’t be long before you’ve nothing left. ❜
❛ if i can’t change things here, if i can’t have an effect, then i don’t care what happens to me. ❜
❛ you’re not my father. ❜
❛ some fresh berries there. ❜
❛ oh, this guy’s hilarious. ❜
❛ get out of here. you hear me? or that little suit’s gonna get all full of blood. ❜
❛ take it easy, sweetheart. ❜
❛ boy, you’re everything they say, ain’t ya? ❜
❛ you got a lot of cats. ❜
❛ i have a thing about strays. ❜
❛ you’re not safe here. ❜
❛ i can take care of myself. ❜
❛ hey, why am i starting to feel like a fish on a hook? ❜
❛ boy, you’re a real sweetheart. ❜
❛ look at me. ❜
❛ that’s one of the guys i got into it with the other night. looks like i broke his nose. ❜
❛ is bruce wayne making an actual appearance? ❜
❛ serial killers like to follow reactions to their crimes. ❜
❛ you have to keep up appearances. you’re still a wayne. ❜
❛ i’ve been trying to reach you. ❜
❛ i’m giving you a chance. no one ever gave me a chance. ❜
❛ it can be cruel poetic or blind. but when it’s denied, it’s violence you may find. ❜
❛ if you are justice, please do not lie. what is the price for your blind eye? ❜
❛ since your justice is so select, tell us which vermin you’re paid to protect. ❜
❛ is this how you get your kicks, hon? sneaking up on girls in the dark? ❜
❛ what the hell is this? good cop, batshit cop? ❜
❛ no habla español, fellas? ❜
❛ jesus. his next victim is bruce wayne. ❜
❛ wasn’t sure i’d see you again. ❜
❛ was it worth it? compromising yourself for money? ❜
❛ who are you under there? what are you hiding? are you just hideously scarred? ❜
❛ i told you, baby. i can take care of myself. ❜
❛ do you know who i am? ❜
❛ i could see the fear in your eyes, but i didn’t know how to help. ❜
❛ i could teach you how to fight, but i wasn’t equipped to take care of you. ❜
❛ you needed a father. and all you had was me. ❜
❛ i never thought i’d feel fear like that again. ❜
❛ come on, vengeance. let’s go kill that son of a bitch. ❜
❛ listen to me. don’t throw your life away. ❜
❛ don’t worry, honey. i got nine of ’em. ❜
❛ whatever i know, whatever i’ve done, it’s all going with me to my grave. ❜
❛ i just ordered a slice of pumpkin pie. ❜
❛ my life has been a cruel riddle i could not solve. ❜
❛ i know now what i must become. ❜
❛ if only you knew how long i’ve been waiting for this day. for this moment. ❜
❛ god. look at you. your mask is amazing. i wish you could’ve seen me in mine. ❜
❛ you and i both know i’m looking at the real you right now. ❜
❛ i told you, we’ve been doing this together. you’re a part of this. ❜
❛ we didn’t do anything together. ❜
❛ this is not how this was supposed to go! ❜
❛ oh, you’re really not as smart as i thought you were. ❜
❛ what’s black and blue and dead all over? you. ❜
❛ i can already see things will get worse before they get better. ❜
❛ people need hope. to know someone’s out there for them. ❜
❛ one day you’re on top, the next… you’re a clown. ❜
❛ gotham loves a comeback story. ❜
❛ riddle me this… the less of them you have, the more one is worth. ❜
❛ don’t you ever just say hello? ❜
❛ you know this place is never gonna change. ❜
❛ the bat and the cat. it’s got a nice ring. ❜
❛ take care of yourself. ❜
a cat burglar who is good at grand escapes 🤝 a billionaire who refuses to leave his hometown (they're in love)
Natasha Trethewey, from Thrall: Poems; "The Americans"
so... we're just not going to address that?
Just hours ago she had every intention to canvas the Tower and nothing else. The best jobs took the longest prep and this job, she swears, will have the best payout and there is absolutely nothing bitter about this angle. He wasn’t even supposed to be home and even if he was... Well she should have known better. So maybe her anger is blinding her a little bit to reason. Only now it isn’t just anger that’s got her fucked up.
Bruce Wayne is half undressed and sprawled on his back in the middle of what she is realizing is some sort of conference room. Figures that a billionaire would have such a space in his fucking home. He’s missing his shirt, lost somewhere in the shuffle from the hall where he’d cornered her snooping, but his pants are still on. Laid back on the long table with his chest rising and falling in time to the thundering pulse in her throat, he almost looks very young. Boyish.
Selina ducks for the floor in pursuit of her own pants. Possibly to force herself to stop staring too. He’d gotten her out of everything and that fact pisses her the fuck off all over again. Almost as much as his accusation. When she half stands to work the pleather over her calveskneesthighs, he’s pushed himself up to his elbows and watches her. Even with the dark of the room, only Gotham’s skyline lit up behind him in applause of its princeling, she can see his eyes and easily picture the cowl accompanying them. Fucking idiot.
“Honey, if you need a play by play of what we just did, maybe we shouldn’t have done it.” It’s easier to give him nothing now. She will enjoy ripping the rug of satisfaction out from underneath him. Selina stands up straight, rolls her shoulders back and watches Bruce’s gaze plummet. He catches himself but not quick enough. Selina smiles slow and lecherous and cruel when he looks her in the eye again. “It won’t happen again. No address needed.”
☾ CAN WE TALK ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED?
give me a heads up next time.
Gotham nightlife is teeming with death as much as it is with life and it’s usually best to avoid it at all cost unless you’ve got a few tricks up your sleeve. Or claws. Selina happens to wield both and successfully disarms a man twice her size. He’s blocking her entrance to her latest grab, standing in front of a window to block the lovely view. Gotham’s weather is fair tonight which means the smoke rings in the sky are visible and seemingly hanging low.
His unconscious body is a pain in the ass to yank through the sill but he’d fallen backwards into it and that was good enough leverage for Selina. Leaving a trail isn’t ideal but what choice did she have?
She’s in and out in under half an hour. She’ll celebrate that PR when she isn’t being heckled by Sira or attempting an escape with a few extra pounds of jewels stuffed into her backpack. It hangs low on her back from that added weight but she shuffles quickly on light feet. Selina makes hardly a sound. Neither does Sira. “Right.” Her voice is less than a whisper. Her eyes speak louder than she can otherwise express. Selina deftly slips a ruby into the other’s hand with finesse but no fanfare. “Hey, there was a guy in my way. Had to take him out. Better?”
☾ CAN WE TALK ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED?
nathalie emmanuel at vogue world: london 2023 on sept 14, 2023